When Mark Twain viewed Albert Bierstadt's painting
The Domes of the Yosemite in 1867, he declared it
"altogether too gorgeous," adding that "as a picture, this
work must please, but as a portrait, I do not think it will
answer. Portraits should be accurate." Despite Twain's suspicion of
the lack of verisimilitude in the painting, the
New York audience was eager for images of the territory
west of the Mississippi. Paintings and sketches of places like Yosemite and Yellowstone suggested that America possessed scenery more majestic than Europe's and that despite the chaos of the Civil War and its aftermath,
America was still destined for greatness. The founding of
the National Park idea in these two very different Wests was a process by
which images of the West were inserted into the national imagination. Yellowstone and Yosemite were dedicated with the idea
that wilderness formed an integral part of the American identity, but they were also places sponsored and
promoted by the railroads to court investors and maximize profits. From the
earliest days of discovery to the crucial National Park Act of 1916, the process of
park development was shaped by needs of the railroads--from acquiring
investors to selling mass-market tourism, they modified their advertising strategies to win the
patronage of new passengers with the promise of fulfilling their expectations of the West in "America's
playgrounds."